re: What items should be banned from purchase with food stamps?

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Love going to Albertsons on Fridays and seeing the line of people getting pounds of boiled or steamed crab legs, lobster, and skrimps on EBT.

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Are you one of those people standing too close behind people?

I have no idea what people in front of me are paying with... I'm not looking over their shoulder.

Food the only concern?

LINK

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Massachusetts welfare recipients spent taxpayer funds in Hawaii, other vacation destinations

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That's not all. Massachusetts' EBT dollars were spent in virtually every state in the U.S., including 165 cities and towns in California and in 293 locations in Florida, the report said.

Over a dozen expenditures were also recorded in the Virgin Islands and in Alaska this year, which included a $395 charge in Anchorage.

Republican state Sen. Ryan Fattman called the report's findings, "insanity and government at its worst."

"This makes no sense. It’s insanity and government at its worst," he told The Herald. "What the hell is someone doing in Hawaii? We need this money to help feed families," he said. "This tells me there’s a major problem with this system."

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Crawfish and crabs

Any government (taxpayer) funded food program should provide the essentials for life.
It should provide absolutely no luxuries.
There should be no steaks, sugar cereals, ice cream, candy etc bought.

It should be rice, beans, oatmeal, eggs and another source of protein such as pork, chicken or hamburger meat.

The problem with welfare is it’s too luxurious so there is no incentive to get off. The things I’ve seen people buying with ebt cards makes my stomach crawl. It is without a doubt, a broken system.

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Any government (taxpayer) funded food program should provide the essentials for life.
It should provide absolutely no luxuries.
There should be no steaks, sugar cereals, ice cream, candy etc bought.

It should be rice, beans, oatmeal, eggs and another source of protein such as pork, chicken or hamburger meat.

The problem with welfare is it’s too luxurious so there is no incentive to get off. The things I’ve seen people buying with ebt cards makes my stomach crawl. It is without a doubt, a broken system.

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Agree 100%

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Drink water from the tap.

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Food stamps should only cover ground beef, poultry, eggs, water, powdered milk, beans, and rice.

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FIFY I agree with the beef statement but only ground beef or stew meat. They want steak they can work for it like I do.

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FIFY I agree with the beef statement but only ground beef or stew meat. They want steak they can work for it like I do.

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food stamps/EBT is dollar based (I assume?). If steak is 3x the cost of ground meat then you get 3x less product (again, I am assuming). I don’t particularly care as long as the dollars are the same either way…but I do care that the kids who are in theory benefiting from this program are actually eating healthier food and in theory getting a chance to break out of the poverty cycle. And not being shown that government assistance is a viable lifestyle choice

public education on this topic is the part that is missing. Food stamp assistance should come with monitoring and assessment training because if we’ve learned anything at all it’s that the stupid and lazy among us must be limited in choices

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The government is already paying for tap water

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Water is a utility that users pay for. It is usually a revenue producing utility for government. The problem is that many systems are on the verge of failing because the government takes those monies and spends it on other government programs and expenditures rather than upkeep and maintenance of the water systems ( sewer systems too).

For Louisiana in particular, it's a huge problem in rural areas (also many other places with aging systems and loss of tax base). It's why the State created the Water Sector program and implemented the grading system for water systems. The law now prohibits failing systems from taking utility proceeds and using them for anything other than on the utility system.

A lot of the US water system, as with its electric infrastructure and bridges and roadways are in a bad spot because the government (Federal, state, and local) for decades didn't use money wisely to keep them maintained and upgraded. The infrastructure is starting to age out and fail in a lot of places. Further, many governments aren't learning the lesson and maintaining new infrastructure appropriately either.

That all said, I agree welfare, food stamps, etc all need reforms. We need more hand ups than handouts.

During Katrina I went to Texas. I went to a local office that gave all evacuees supplies and a thing called a Lone Star card. It was like a food stamp card. Had $350 on it. I had then a good job in storm recovery and didn't really use the card for food.
Me and some friends decided to have a party. We decided to buy all the live lobsters at SavACenter and two whole beef tenderloins, that I had the butcher slice.
Went up front and paid for the whole thing with food stamp cards. The cashier came me out, a lady in line called me out. I was just a little a-hole then and gave a-hole replies to both.
"I don't think this is supposed to be used for this, $300 worth of streak and Lobster".

I'm like" lady, my house is destroyed. I can either live in my FEMA trailer or my apartment in Mobile. I have to drive to Bioloxi for work every morning. If I want to spend my stamps on having a surf and turf party I will do that".

Went home grilled the lobster and steaks.

I never had food assistance before or after.



100% used only on meat.